Is This Seat TakenRosalie McCracken
suppose you take my presence
               as an invitation:
headphones in, half-eaten plate,
               decaf-suspected coffee
                                                       yeah, i’m waiting on someone–
                he sits down.
asks me what i’m reading and
               i tell him.
                                                         do you like it?
there’s a scene that i think of.
               calenture; noun:
a phenomena where sailors slick
               with delirium
toss themselves like dolls
               overboard
what they see: meadows dalloped
               with polite flowers,
afflicted by their heat strokes.
what you see: a girl, she looks
               quiet and the
empty seat suggests she needs me,
               her limbs wilted
irises, outstretched, welcoming.
                                                          not really, no.
what I see: my wave-walloped skull,
               rotten forehead
fighting the tide. I believed that 9 years
               of swimming lessons
would teach me not to drown,
               that my body wouldn’t
be the anchor that it is.
                                                          i’m actually trying to finish this chapter for—
                                                          okay, i’ll let you finish, then.
standing, more a
               permission of freedom
than a sigh of defeat.
               before you leave
you spill my coffee, a brown puddle
               for me to sop up
and i do, with those shitty, thin
               cafe napkins,
between salty breaths, more a
               distress signal
than a laugh.
               i go home,
i retell the story, and
               i still insist
you didn’t do it on purpose.